pilgrimage of man had passed through various states of existence,
which our dim traditionary knowledge has not preserved, yet the
condition of our race in the northern hemisphere was then what
_we_, in our imperfect lore, have conceived to be among the
earliest.




FORMING A NEW RELIGION.

By a rude and vast pile of stones, the masonry of arts
forgotten, a lonely man sat at midnight, gazing upon the
heavens. A storm had just passed from the earth--the clouds had
rolled away, and the high stars looked down upon the rapid
waters of the Rhine; and no sound save the roar of the waves and
the dripping of the rain from the mighty trees, was heard around
the ruined pile: the white sheep lay scattered on the plain, and
slumber with them. He sat watching over the herd, lest the foes
of a neighboring tribe seized them unawares, and thus he
coummuned with himself:

"The king sits upon his throne, and is honored by a warrior
race, and the warrior exults in the trophies he has won; the
step of the huntsman is bold upon the mountain-top, and his name
is sung at night round the pine-fires, by the lips of the bard;
and the bard himself hath honor in the hail. But I, who belong
not to the race of kings, and whose limbs can bound not to the
rapture of war, nor scale the eyries of the eagle and the haunts
of the swift stag; whose hand cannot string the harp, and whose